Grateful Dead Music Forum

Hi TS,

I too am a CTO-1 user for about 2-3 months now. A great buy at $29 (ebAY dollars). I have been playing with some settings that fit both my style and what I allows for alot of natural tone to ring through. I play both an 80's Strat (all SC) and an Ibanez Artist (dual HB). They both have their own unique tone and I enjoy the variation depending upon what I am playing.

Anyway, I was hoping that you might care to share your CTO-1 setting(s) with a fellow Gear Head. I am interested to know if you are able to achieve "that" tone or an approximation of it. I know that I won't ever have "it" with the equipment that I have but its been fun to try with what is available to me. Anyway, your thoughts and opinions are welcome.

BTW, I love this pedal!

Thanks,

~Brutus

I recommend the T-Rex Dr. Swamp - I've gone through a bunch of pedals and never found one that I liked for stage use till this one. It's got 2 channels so you can set one for moderate gain and one really saturated. Even on the highest gain settings you can still hear the notes it doesn't become mush as many gain/distortion pedals do especially at stage volume. Not the cheapest out there but I think it's well worth it.

brutusbuck45 wrote:Hi TS,

I too am a CTO-1 user for about 2-3 months now. A great buy at $29 (ebAY dollars). I have been playing with some settings that fit both my style and what I allows for alot of natural tone to ring through. I play both an 80's Strat (all SC) and an Ibanez Artist (dual HB). They both have their own unique tone and I enjoy the variation depending upon what I am playing.

Anyway, I was hoping that you might care to share your CTO-1 setting(s) with a fellow Gear Head. I am interested to know if you are able to achieve "that" tone or an approximation of it. I know that I won't ever have "it" with the equipment that I have but its been fun to try with what is available to me. Anyway, your thoughts and opinions are welcome.

BTW, I love this pedal!

Thanks,

~Brutus

Hey, sorry I didn't notice this. I keep both Level and Gain fairly low, and the EQ... I guess "slightly scooped".

I have had the TS9 Analogman Silver for several years. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE that pedal. I have mainly used that as my dirt, and my GE7 eq as a boost. But I recently dumped a crappy multi fx that I held onto for waaaaay to long, from my chain. Since I had the room, I hooked up my old Boss HM-2. I am not going to rave about that pedal, but in combination with the screamer, I do get that high end break up. The screamer actually acts as a contour control for pedal and really rounds it out so its not so insecty...

Big fan of the Blues Driver pedal
Love it for Jerrys Super gain-y sustain-y 80's stuff.

I'm coming up on 5 years with the same dirt pedal

strumminsix wrote:I'm coming up on 5 years with the same dirt pedal

How do you do it?! I can hardly go 5 days without mixing my board up. While it's fun to change things up, I would probably benefit from sticking with one rig and really dialing it in.

John in San Diego

rugger wrote:

strumminsix wrote:I'm coming up on 5 years with the same dirt pedal

How do you do it?! I can hardly go 5 days without mixing my board up. While it's fun to change things up, I would probably benefit from sticking with one rig and really dialing it in.

John in San Diego

Ha! Well, I was like you at one point! Figured out what works best for me and no need to mix it up anymore:
Dirt = Barber LTD SR
Phase = Maxon PH350
Delay = cmatmods Deeelay
Envelop = Emma Discumbobulator

I'd love to include a flanger one day but am set for now

By all accounts, the Barber stuff is the tits. I want to try the 1/2 gainer.

I'm starting to see the back end of my GAS curve for sure. Focus is less on acquiring and more on playing what I have, and in turn, figuring out what I like best.

John in San Diego

Keeley modded Blues Driver is very nice

Not so much for Jerry, but the G2D Custom Overdrive is great

Also for a cleanish boost, a Barber Tone Press, a compressor where you can mix in the uncompressed signal. Nice boost for clean leads

Menatone Red Snapper is a nice variant on the TS9... without the mid hump. Has a cut knob that really helps.

Strumin you mention the rat. Have you tried the ocd? I use one for my higher gain lead work but I just so happened to be a/bing it today with my earth drive. The ocd is supposedly based on the rat circuit with more even order harmonics, its really transparent. I was able to get the ocd and earth drive to sound identical at lower gain settings. My opinion on the earth drive is its great for low gain boost type stuff. The ocd is great at it all. I'm thinking of getting another one. For some mid gain stuff. Greg...

Yeah thread title is a little misleading..

My fav clean boost, OD and Dist pedals:

Blackstone MOSFET (brown channel, not red)
Klon Centaur (probably the best "dirt" pedal ever made IMO)
Crowther Hot Cake
Durham Sex Drive
ProCo Rat
JRC chip tubescreamers
Telenordia TA-100

This pedal was cancelled,because it was found to be a clone of Paul Cochranes' Timmy Pedal. Has been replaced by version 2, almost exactly the same.